At the time of the public exhibit of the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima), a substantial number of respected historians sent a letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution objecting to the bias inherent in the exhibit. Their letter is one of the best statements of some historical facts (see their reference list) that support that there was no military rationale for using atomic weapons on Japan. Please read the letter and other supporting reference material (click the Comments for the full story) and evaluate the situation for yourself in light of this informaton.
March 20, 2010
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ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT
THE HISTORIANS’ LETTER TO THE SMITHSONIAN
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Mr. I. Michael Heyman
Secretary
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560
July 31, 1995
Dear Secretary Heyman:
Testifying before a House subcommittee on March 10, 1995, you promised that when you finally unveiled the Enola Gay exhibit, “I am just going to report the facts.”[1]
Unfortunately, the Enola Gay exhibit contains a text which goes far beyond the facts. The critical label at the heart of the exhibit makes the following assertions:
* The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths.” This substantially understates the widely accepted figure that at least 200,000 men, women and children were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Official Japanese records calculate a figure of more than 200,000 deaths–the vast majority of victims being women, children and elderly men.)[2]
* “However,” claims the Smithsonian, “the use of the bombs led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands.” Presented as fact, this sentence is actually a highly contentious interpretation. For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division concluded, “The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan.”[3] (The Soviet entry into the war on August 8th is not even mentioned in the exhibit as a major factor in the Japanese surrender.) And it is also a fact that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, the Japanese still insisted that Emperor Hirohito be allowed to remain emperor as a condition of surrender. Only when that assurance was given did the Japanese agree to surrender. This was precisely the clarification of surrender terms that many of Truman’s own top advisors had urged on him in the months prior to Hiroshima. This, too, is a widely known fact.[4]
* The Smithsonian’s label also takes the highly partisan view that, “It was thought highly unlikely that Japan, while in a very weakened military condition, would have surrendered unconditionally without such an invasion.” Nowhere in the exhibit is this interpretation balanced by other views. Visitors to the exhibit will not learn that many U.S. leaders–including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower[5], Admiral William D. Leahy[6], War Secretary Henry L. Stimson[7], Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew[8] and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy[9]–thought it highly probable that the Japanese would surrender well before the earliest possible invasion, scheduled for November 1945. It is spurious to assert as fact that obliterating Hiroshima in August was needed to obviate an invasion in November. This is interpretation–the very thing you said would be banned from the exhibit.
* In yet another label, the Smithsonian asserts as fact that “Special leaflets were then dropped on Japanese cities three days before a bombing raid to warn civilians to evacuate.” The very next sentence refers to the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, implying that the civilian inhabitants of Hiroshima were given a warning. In fact, no evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning of atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the Interim Committee was “that we could not give the Japanese any warning.”[10]
* In a 16 minute video film in which the crew of the Enola Gay are allowed to speak at length about why they believe the atomic bombings were justified, pilot Col. Paul Tibbits asserts that Hiroshima was “definitely a military objective.” Nowhere in the exhibit is this false assertion balanced by contrary information. Hiroshima was chosen as a target precisely because it had been very low on the previous spring’s campaign of conventional bombing, and therefore was a pristine target on which to measure the destructive powers of the atomic bomb.[11] Defining Hiroshima as a “military” target is analogous to calling San Francisco a “military” target because it has a port and contains the Presidio. James Conant, a member of the Interim Committee that advised President Truman, defined the target for the bomb as a “vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.”[12] There were indeed military factories in Hiroshima, but they lay on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, the Enola Gay bombardier’s instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.
The few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the Enola Gay amount to a highly unbalanced and one-sided presentation of a largely discredited post-war justification of the atomic bombings.
Such errors of fact and such tendentious interpretation in the exhibit are no doubt partly the result of your decision earlier this year to take this exhibit out of the hands of professional curators and your own board of historical advisors. Accepting your stated concerns for accuracy, we trust that you will therefore adjust the exhibit, either to eliminate the highly contentious interpretations, or at the very least, balance them with other interpretations that can be easily drawn from the attached footnotes.
Sincerely,
Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
Co-chairs of the Historians’ Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima
(see the attached sheet for additional signatories)
References
1. “Enola Gay Exhibit to ‘Report the Facts,'” Washington Times, March 11, 1995.
2. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings, (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 364.
3. “Memorandum for Chief, Strategic Policy Section, S&P Group, OPD, Subject: Use of the Atomic Bomb on Japan,” April 30, 1946, ABC 471.6 Atom (17 August 1945) Sec 7, Entry 421, Record Group 165, National Archives.
4. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years 1904-1945, Vol. II (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952), pp. 1406-1442; U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan’s Struggle to End the War (Washington, July 1946); Gar Alperovitz, “Hiroshima: Historians Reassess,” Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, pp. 15-34; and, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race, rev. ed. (New York, Random House, 1987), p. 225.
5. See “Notes on talk with President Eisenhower,” April 6, 1960, War Department Notes envelope, Box 66, Herbert Feis Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division; and, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President, April 6, 1960,” April 11, 1960, “Staff Notes–April 1960,” Folder 2, DDE Diary Series, Box 49, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library; and also, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.), pp. 312-313.
6. William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1950), p. 441. See also his private diary (in particular the June 18, 1945 entry) available at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
7. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947, 1948), pp. 628-629.
8. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era, pp. 1406-1442; Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 225.
9. See John J. McCloy interview with Fred Freed for NBC White Paper, “The Decision to Drop the Bomb,” (interview conducted sometime between May 1964 and February 1965), Roll 1, p. 11, File 50A, Box SP2, McCloy Papers, Amherst College Archives.
10. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, “Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945,” p. 302.
11. The papers of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, are filled with his statements to the effect that he wanted a virgin target large enough so that the effects of the bomb would not dissipate by the time they reached the edge of the city. See for example the letter from Groves to John A. Shane, 12/27/60 on target selection, in the Groves Papers, Record Group 200, National Archives. See also, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 229-230.
12. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, “Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945,” p. 302.
List of Signatories
Kai Bird, co-chair of the Historians’ Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima
Martin Sherwin, co-chair of the Historians’ Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima
Walter LaFeber, Professor of History, Cornell University
Stanley Hoffman, Dillon Professor, Harvard University
Mark Selden, Chair, Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton
Jon Wiener, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine
William O. Walker III, Ohio Wesleyan University
Dr. E.B. Halpern, Lecturer in American History, University College London
John Morris, Professor, Miyagi Gakuin Women’s Junior College, Sendai, Japan
Gar Alperovitz, historian and author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
Stanley Goldberg, historian of science and biographer of Gen. Leslie Groves
James Hershberg, historian and author of James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age
Greg Mitchell, author of Hiroshima in America
Gaddis Smith, Professor of History, Yale University
Barton J. Bernstein, Professor of History, Stanford University
Michael J. Hogan, Professor of History, Ohio State University
Melvyn P. Leffler, Professor of History, University of Virginia
John W. Dower, Professor of History, MIT
Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Author and Fellow of the Russian Research Center, Harvard University
Bob Carter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Worcester College of Higher Education, England.
Douglas Haynes, Associate Professor of History, Dartmouth College
Bruce Nelson, Department of History, Dartmouth College
Walter J. Kendall, III, The John Marshall School of Law, Chicago
Patricia Morton, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside
Michael Kazin, Professor of History, American University
Gerald Figal, Asst. Professor of History, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
R. David Arkush, Professor of History, University of Iowa, Iowa City
Barbara Brooks, Professor of Japanese and Chinese History, City College of New York
Dell Upton, Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Eric Schneider, Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
Janet Golden, Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers, Camden
Bob Buzzanco, Assistant Professor of History, University of Houston
Lawrence Badash, Professor of History of Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
Kanno Humio, Asociate Professor of Iwate University, Japan
Robert Entenmann, Associate Professor of History, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Mark Lincicome, Assistant Professor, Department of History, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
Kristina Kade Troost, Duke University, Durham NC
Peter Zarrow, Assistant Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
Michael Kucher, University of Delaware
Lawrence Rogers, University of Hawaii at Hilo
Alan Baumler, Piedmont College
Timothy S. George, Harvard University
Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Kikuchi Isao, Professor of Japanese History, Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College, Sendai, Japan
Ohira Satoshi, Associate Professor of Japanese History, Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College, Sendai, Japan
Inoue Ken’Ichiro Associate Professor of Japanese Art History, Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College, Sendai, Japan
Yanagiya Keiko, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, Siewa Women’s College, Sendai, Japan
Sanho Tree, Research Director, Historians’ Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima
Eric Alterman, Stanford University
Jeff R. Schutts, Georgetown University
Gary Michael Tartakov, Iowa State University
W. Donald Smith, University of Washington, currently at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo
Comment by admin — November 22, 2009 @ 2:41 am
Truman delivered his speech from the White House at 10 P.M. Washington time on August 9, 1945. By this time, a second atomic bomb already had destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Because of the great length of the speech, most of which dealt with Germany, only the relevant paragraph is quoted here.
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The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction.
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961) page 212. The full text also was published in the New York Times, August 10, 1945, page 12.
Comment by admin — November 22, 2009 @ 2:52 am
I copied the following from a website that lists a particularly useful and informative set of public documents (many were once top secret) concerning the steps that led to the nuclear bombing of Japan. You should be able to work from this list and find the particular documents that interest you. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the first atomic bombs used in warfare.
Documents on the decision to use the atomic bomb are reproduced here in full-text form. In most cases, the originals are in the U.S. National Archives. Other aspects of the decision are shown from accounts by the participants. This page was new May 29, 1995, and it was last updated August 9, 2003.
International Law – Bombing of Civilians – At the beginning of World War II, the bombing of civilians was regarded as a barbaric act. As the war continued, however, all sides abandoned previous restraints. But international law has always distinguished between civilians and combatants. Legal context to the decision, from a variety of international treaties and the 1996 World Court opinion.
Target Committee, Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945 – Minutes of the Target Committee, meeting in the office of J. Robert Oppenheimer, as they decided the best use of the “gadget.”
The Franck Report, June 11, 1945 – The Franck Report, written by a seven-man panel of scientists at the University of Chicago, urged that the bomb be demonstrated “before the eyes of representatives of all United Nations, on the desert or a barren island.”
Scientific Panel, June 16, 1945 – Despite the arguments against using the bomb made by the Franck Report, a panel composed of Oppenheimer, Fermi, Compton, and Lawrence found “no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”
Bard Memorandum, June 27, 1945 – Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard wrote that use of the bomb without warning was contrary to “the position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation,” especially since Japan seemed close to surrender.
Setting the Test Date, July 2, 1945 – President Truman had delayed his meeting with Stalin until the atomic bomb could be tested. On July 2, General Groves told Robert Oppenheimer that the test date was being set by “the upper crust.”
Szilard Petition, first version, July 3, 1945 – The first version of Leo Szilard’s petition called atomic bombs “a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities.” It asked the President “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.”
Petition cover letter, July 4, 1945 – Szilard sent copies of the July 3 version of his petition to colleagues at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. This cover letter discussed the need for scientists to take a moral stand on the use of the bomb.
Groves Seeks Evidence, July 4, 1945 – As Szilard circulated his petition, General Groves sought ways to take action against him. On July 4, 1945, Groves wrote to Lord Cherwell, Winston Churchill’s science advisor.
Oak Ridge petition, July 13, 1945 – The first version of Szilard’s petition inspired a similar petition at the Manhattan Project laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The names of the 18 signers are included.
Oak Ridge petition, mid-July 1945 – Another petition at Oak Ridge called for the power of the bomb to be “adequately described and demonstrated” before use. The names of the 67 signers are included.
Trinity Test, July 16, 1945 – Radiation Monitoring – The test of the atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert on July 16 was a spectacular success. This report by Manhattan Project Chief of Medical Section Stafford Warren shows that radioactive fallout from the test was an important concern.
Trinity Test, July 16, 1945 – Eyewitness Accounts – Even 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, scientists felt the heat of the explosion on exposed skin. Declassified eyewitness accounts of the Trinity test by Luis Alvarez, Enrico Fermi, Philip Morrison, Robert Serber, Victor Weisskopf, and others.
Szilard Petition, July 17, 1945 – Leo Szilard, and 69 co-signers at the Manhattan Project “Metallurgical Laboratory” in Chicago, petitioned the President of the United States. The names and positions of the signers are included.
Szilard Petition, July 17, 1945, GIF image – See Szilard’s petition. The image is only 38k, but your monitor must support at least 800×600 resolution to view it properly.
Truman Tells Stalin, July 24, 1945 – At the Potsdam Conference in defeated Germany, President Truman told Stalin only that the U.S. “had a new weapon of unusual destructive force.” What did Truman say, and what did Stalin understand? Seven eyewitness accounts.
Truman Diary, July 25, 1945 – President Truman told his diary that he had ordered the bomb dropped on a “purely military” target, so that “military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.”
Official Bombing Order, July 25, 1945 – The bombing order issued to General Spaatz made no mention of targetting military objectives or sparing civilians. The cities themselves were the targets.
Groves-Oppenheimer transcript, August 6, 1945 – General Groves informed Robert Oppenheimer of the Hiroshima bombing. Transcript of telephone conversation.
Truman radio speech, August 9, 1945 (excerpt) – In his radio speech to the nation on August 9, President Truman called Hiroshima “a military base.” This is a 50k (.AU format) audio file. Hear Truman say it. Or read the full text of that paragraph.
Leo Szilard, Interview: “President Truman Did Not Understand” – A 1960 interview with Leo Szilard about the use of the bomb, reprinted by permission from U.S. News & World Report.
Comment by admin — November 22, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0805-24.htm
This address provides helpful information about our use of atomic weapons in WWII. It particularly notes that no particular warnings were given before the atomic attacks (atomic warnings were given AFTERWARDS) and that the figure of a “million lives saved” by the bombings was simply made up by a professional speech writer. (I should note that essentially all Japanese cities were earlier told to evacuate in conjunction with our policy of fire bombing cities in line with Truman’s intention to destroy Japan. Dropping leaflets on numerous cities telling folks to leave their cities and go somewhere else is not what I call an appropriate warning for atomic attack on these two specific cities. But this is what folks are referring to when they stoutly affirm “we told them, not our fault.”)
If this link or others in these comments are not operative from this site, copy them or google the subject title to get the full reports.
Comment by admin — December 8, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
I posted the following on my Facebook page. Particularly important are the links providing the evidence that supports this post
.
A common misunderstanding is that dropping the atom bomb was necessary to end WWII and saved a million American lives. I get tired explaining that this is incorrect, so here are helpful links providing the historical record. You can add this to yesterday’s link regarding misunderstanding appeasement before WWII. How can a “free” people learn from history when politics and power often work to distort or even destroy the lessons of history?
Japan was proposing surrender with the significant concern that the Emperor be sustained and not be tried for war crimes (and likely hanged). Truman refused to consider anything other than unconditional surrender until AFTER the atom bombs had been dropped. At that point, he offered the condition that Japan had previously wanted to discuss and to receive reassurance concerning.
http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p508_Hoffman.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0805-24.htms
http://www2.fiu.edu/~hisgsa/review_essay-Sebastian.htm
Comment by admin — September 11, 2010 @ 8:13 am
On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated:
“The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.”
Truman appears to have been willing to totally destroy all Japan if it could save some thousands of American lives. (I can’t assume a particular number, and I’m sure he never thought of particularly numbers.) I’m not so much trying to condemn Truman as to understand the mindset that so many people have about “them” and “us.” He felt that Japanese were less human than us (expressed as “not like us”), and therefore more expendable. The scary thing is how very common this type of thinking becomes in wartime, and also how it describes the justification of terrorist warfare and our killing of Muslims.
For additionnal research information/references/resources, check.
http://theworldofmojo.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/was-the-bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-justified-part-1/
http://theworldofmojo.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/was-the-bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-justified-part-2/
http://theworldofmojo.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/was-the-bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-justified-part-3/
Comment by admin — September 29, 2010 @ 3:58 pm